Ballygunner manager Fergal Hartley has played down talk of his team’s ‘Drive for Five’ ahead of Sunday’s Waterford senior hurling championship final against Abbeyside.

Hartley's side are red-hot favourites at 1-8 to collect another title this weekend but, speaking to the Munster Express, he says there has been no talk amongst the players of a five-in-a-row success.

A Ballygunner victory would mark the first in the Deise County since Mount Sion’s 1957 triumph, which went on to become a nine-in-a-row by 1961.

“I’ll be honest, I’ve not heard any of that, and if the lads have been talking about it, they’ve kept it among themselves but genuinely our objective, from the start of the year, was to win the Championship," said Hartley. 

“The next objective was to win our group, which we did, and then the objective moved to winning our quarter-final and then the semi-final. We’ve literally taken this one fence at a time, to take each game entirely on its own merits, and now we’re back in a Final and we know what our objective is for next Sunday.

“Last year, we didn’t talk about four in a row; this year we haven’t spoken about five in a row. We’ve taken each game as it’s come to us, and we’ll treat the Final the same way we treated both of our knock-out games along with our three group games for that matter.

 “We’re preparing for next Sunday just like we have for every other game which has taken us to this point, and that really is our focus.”

The two sides clash this Sunday, October 7, at Fraher Field (throw-in 3.30pm).

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